


I Could Hate You Now

by liveinfury



Series: the markings on your surface [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveinfury/pseuds/liveinfury
Summary: can we exchange first letters of our names? Dylan ponders this for a minute. He’s sure “D” doesn’t give anything away and it’d be nice to call his soulmate something other than soulmate in his head.D   MDylan smiles as the “M” fades from his wrist. A lot of names starts with that letter, Matt, Martin, Max, Miles, but the first name that pops into his head is Mitch.(can be read as a standalone)





	

**Author's Note:**

> it's so short but it took me forever to buckle down and write. there are a lot of 'fuck offs' and eye rolls in this, so be warned. 
> 
> this can be read as a standalone. it's just in the same AU as the other fic in the series.
> 
> title is from Ivy by Frank Ocean.

“Fuck off, asshole!” Dylan shouts as he recovers from a hit delivered by Mitch.

Mitch throws him an evil grin over his shoulder and skates down the rink with the puck.

The Otters lose. Dylan’s seething with anger as he rips his gear off in the locker room. He can’t stand Mitch fucking Marner.

They’ve always faced each other growing up, and it’s not that hard to develop a bitter attitude toward a guy who loves to steal your spotlight. They’ve got a rivalry going on, but Dylan doesn’t let it end on the ice. He hates the guy, regardless of what surface he’s on.

Dylan seeks solace in his soulmate. He pushes up his sleeve and grabs a pen out of his stall.

**I’m having a bad day**

**cheer me up?**

He continues to undress as he waits for his soulmates response. It comes when he’s in the shower, his wrist starts tingling so he glances down to see words start to appear.

_aw I’m sorry_

_how?_

Dylan gets dressed and boards the bus with the rest of the guys.

**don’t know**

**how was your day?**

_good!_

_sorry you probably don’t want to hear about it_

**no I do**

**tell me more**

**please?**

_I hung out with my friends, played some hockey_

_it was fun_

**I’m jealous**

_of my good day?_

**of your friends**

_:) you’re cute_

**< 3**

He’s never met his soulmate. They decided early on that they didn’t want to meet until they were at least eighteen. This works for Dylan because he plans on meeting them after he gets drafted. He wants to have things figured out in his career before he fully commits to his soulmate.

Dylan doesn’t know that much about his soulmate. He doesn’t even have a name. He knows that his soulmate lives in Toronto, he occasionally plays hockey, and more detailed things about his family. 

But he’s okay with not knowing too much, it makes it easier for Dylan to conceal some things about himself as well. The less he asks his soulmate, the less his soulmate asks him. He’s afraid if he tells his soulmate too much, he’ll figure out who he is, which is something Dylan can’t really afford right now.

Given all of this, sometimes he still wishes he could meet his soulmate sooner rather than later. If he weren’t planning on being in the NHL, he would have convinced his soulmate to meet a long time ago. There’s something about him that makes Dylan feel all giddy and happy. It’s obviously the fact that he’s his soulmate, but he always has comforting words. He’s there when it feel like no one else is. When there’s too much pressure on Dylan or things become overwhelming, he knows he can write to his soulmate and feel calm and relaxed within seconds.

*

Dylan’s over at Connor’s, lounging around all day and goofing off when his wrist burns up.

_my brother’s being a dick_

Dylan snorts. They often commiserate about their annoying older brothers.

**what’d he do now?**

_borrowed my mom’s car and dented it_

_he’s saying it wasn’t him_

**they think it was you?**

_they don’t know who’s lying_

_so we’re both grounded :(_

**oh man**

**that’s rough**

**sorry**

_what’re you up to?_

**hanging out with my friend**

_oh friend or FRIEND_

**I don’t know what that means**

**but he’s just a friend if that’s what you’re getting at**

_it was_

_it’s okay if he’s not_

**okay but he is**

_okay_

Dylan doesn’t like the idea of his soulmate being okay with him dating or just fooling around with other people. 

**do you date?**

_I don’t really have the time to_

**but if you did you would?**

_not really_

**why not?**

_because I kinda really like you_

Dylan blushes as the words appear on his skin. He’s relieved that their feelings are mutual.

“What’re you blushing about?” Connor says from his side of the couch as he flips through channels.

“Nothing,” Dylan says.

“Something your soulmate said?” Connor asks.

Dylan glances at Connor. If he can’t tell Connor, then who can he really tell?

“Yeah, he said he really likes me,” Dylan admits.

Connor grins and reaches over to slap him on the back.

“That’s awesome, man,” he says. “I mean I know it’s basically a given, but it has to be nice to know, right?”

Dylan nods his head. “For sure.”

**good because I kinda really like you too**

_I’m waiting for you_

**me too**

_can we exchange first letters of our names?_

Dylan ponders this for a minute. He’s sure “D” doesn’t give anything away and it’d be nice to call his soulmate something other than soulmate in his head.

**D**

_M_

Dylan smiles as the “M” fades from his wrist. A lot of names starts with that letter, Matt, Martin, Max, Miles, but the first name that pops into his head is Mitch.

He shakes the notion out of his head. He really has to learn to get over the stupid rivalry. He shouldn’t let Mitch get under his skin so much and occupy so much of his mind. 

*

“Why’d you invite him?” Dylan asks.

Connor follows Dylan’s gaze and rolls his eyes.

“Just because you have some weird enemies thing with him doesn’t mean I do.”

“But you’re not even friends,” Dylan whines.

Mitch must sense someone looking at him because he looks up from where he’s observing the table full of snacks and glances around the room before his gaze lands on Dylan.

Dylan glares and practically growls at him.

Mitch’s blue eyes harden as he flips Dylan off.

“We’ve got a lot of the same friends, it’d be rude not to invite him,” Connor explains.

“No it wouldn’t be. It’s your party, Davo, you can invite whoever you want.”

“Exactly, I can invite whoever I want.”

Dylan groans in frustration and stalks over to Mitch.

“Strome,” Mitch greets him.

“Marner,” Dylan says. “Listen, stay out of my way tonight and we’ll be fine.”

“What if I don’t?” Mitch asks, narrowing his eyes.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” Dylan says. “Why did you even come?”

“My friends were going to be here,” Mitch answers. “And it was nice of Davo to invite me, why would I turn it down?”

“Davo,” Dylan mutters, only Connor’s close friends call him that.

“Dude, I was fine with ignoring you all night, but you’re the one who can’t stop staring at me,” Mitch says, smirking. “I know I’m hot and all, but you’re not really my type.”

Dylan refuses to flinch at the poorly thought insult, but for some reason it gets to him. Not Mitch’s type? What does that even mean? Dylan’s heard through the vine that Mitch is bi, so it can’t be because of his gender. 

“I wasn’t staring,” Dylan says.

Mitch rolls his eyes. “Whatever, I’ll stay out of your way as long as you stop being a creep,” he says as he shoves past Dylan.

“I’m not a creep!” Dylan shouts after him. “You’re just an egomaniac!”

He notices that it suddenly got quite and realizes everyone in hearing vicinity is staring at him.

“He’s a dick! I wasn’t staring!” Mitch stresses to Alex who’s looking at him with a questioning face.

Alex smirks, “Sure, man.”

Dylan lets out a frustrated groan and pulls a pen out of his pocket. He scribbles on his wrist.

**do you hate anyone?**

_uh weird question but no_

_why? Who do you hate?_

**this kid I always run into**

**he’s friends with my friends and he just gets on my nerves**

_why?_

**I don’t really know**

**just something about him rubs me the wrong way**

_D, that’s not really fair_

**I know but it’s just how it is**

**besides I’m pretty sure he hates me too**

_what if he doesn’t?_

_don’t hate people for no reason_

_you could be missing out on a great friend_

Dylan thinks about what M is saying. He’s heard it a bunch of times in the past from teammates and his parents, but reading it on his skin makes him actually consider the meaning behind the words.

He probably wouldn’t go as far as say he hates Mitch. He just dislikes him because he’s a fucking menace to play against, but off the ice? There’s no real reason to hate the guy.

**guess you’re right**

**you’re the best, M**

_I know!_

**I’m rolling my eyes at you**

_wish I could see_

**me too**

_what color are your eyes?_

Dylan hesitates to answer. They’ve never discussed physical details of themselves, but he guesses having brown eyes isn’t too distinguishing.

**brown**

**yours?**

_blue_

Dylan smiles, he’s always been drawn to people with blue eyes. His mind immediately leaps to the image of Mitch’s narrowed angry blue eyes from earlier. 

He looks around the room and finds Mitch staring fondly at his wrist. It’s a look that Dylan’s rarely around to see and makes his stomach feel weird. 

*

Dylan spends most of the night outside on Connor’s deck writing to his soulmate. There are a few people that come and go throughout the night, but everyone leaves him be once they see that he’s writing to his soulmate.

At some point in the night, he hears a scoff from above him.

“I can’t believe you have a soulmate,” Mitch says.

Dylan ignores him and scribbles back a reply to his soulmate. “Thought you were going to stay out of my way,” he mumbles.

Mitch plops down on the chair across from him. “Wanted fresh air,” he says, sounding distracted.

Dylan glances up to see Mitch writing on his own wrist. He ignores him and waits for his own soulmate’s reply.

_it was the worst_

_puke was everywhere_

Dylan chuckles and writes back.

**oh man glad I wasn’t there**

_it was so embarrassing_

**I can only imagine**

**did anyone say something?**

_not really just a lot of ew_

_they glared at me really hard after we got off the roller coaster_

**I would’ve just ran away**

_I couldn’t!_

_I was so dizzy after, they had to call a paramedic_

**you’re a disaster**

Mitch laughs from across the table as the words disappear from Dylan’s wrist. He forgot Mitch was there, he looks over at him and watches as he writes something on his wrist.

_that’s not even the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me_

The words show up on Dylan’s skin almost the exact time Mitch stops writing. That’s odd.

**how could anything top that?**

Dylan keeps his eyes on Mitch as he draws the question mark blindly on his skin. As soon as he’s done, Mitch’s attention zeros in on his own wrist and he smiles. He writes something and once he’s finished, Dylan’s skin tingles almost immediately. 

_I got pantsed in grade 9_

Dylan laughs and feels Mitch’s eyes on him. He looks up and meets his eyes.

“What?” Dylan asks.

“You’re loud,” Mitch says.

“If it’s annoying then go back inside,” Dylan says, shrugging.

**just pants or underwear too???**

His reply doesn’t come as quickly as the others have. While he waits, he looks over at Mitch and listens to him on his phone telling his parents he’ll be home soon. Once he’s hangs up, he picks up his pen and writes.

_underwear too_

_and then I started to cry_

Dylan stares at Mitch. It’s weird that every time he stops writing his own skin buzzes with a response. 

**where are you right now?**

_random_

_a party_

**and you’re talking to me instead?**

_I like talking to you, D_

Dylan leans slightly over the table to get a look at Mitch’s wrist. It’s incredibly inappropriate and rude to read someone else’s wrist, but he’s desperate right now. He needs to know that all of this is just a coincidence, that Mitchell Marner isn’t his soulmate.

He blindly draws a line on his own wrist while keeping his eyes on Mitch’s.

The line appears on his wrist as soon as he’s done.

Dylan scrambles up from the table.

Mitch looks at his wrist and then at Dylan in confusion. “You okay?” he asks.

Dylan swallows and nods his head. He’s not going to say anything to Mitch, at least not yet. He needs to get his mind around what he just saw. 

He watches Mitch write a response.

_?_

He feels it appear on his skin, but before he can look, Mitch is gaping at him.

“What?” Dylan asks, hesitantly. He needs to get out away from him, fast.

Mitch scribbles out something on his wrist.

_Dylan?_

Mitch continues to stare at him.

“Now looks who’s staring,” Dylan grumbles. He belatedly realizes that Mitch is staring at his hand.

Dylan immediately places his it behind his back in the least casual manner and tries to shuffle back inside the house.

He doesn’t get far because Mitch grabs him by his arm.

“Get off me!” he yells.

“D?” Mitch asks, staring at Dylan with wide eyes.

Dylan tries to look confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mitch doesn’t seem to buy it. “It all makes sense now. You play hockey, you have an older brother, you live in Toronto, you didn’t tell me anything that would give you away, I-you’re-”

“I’m nothing. Clearly this is all one big fuckup,” Dylan says, cutting the charade of feigning confusion. “We aren’t soulmates.”

“But I saw your wrist, I saw-”

“We are, but we won’t be,” Dylan struggles to explain. “Forget about it, okay? It doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t be soulmates with you, so we’ll just stop writing, let it go.”

“Why?” Mitch asks, his voice trembling. “Why can’t you be my soulmate?”

“Because I can’t stand you, Marner,” Dylan says through gritted teeth.

Hurt quickly flashes across Mitch’s face before it’s replaced with indifference. “Fine. Forget about me, then. Like I give a shit.” He drops Dylan’s arm and stomps back inside.

Dylan sighs and waits a few minutes before following him in. He says his goodbyes to Connor and some of the guys and heads home.

He’s tossing and turning in bed when his wrist burns. He fumbles for his phone so he can shine some light onto his wrist and make out the words.

_I hate you_

*

It’s been months since he last saw Mitch and spoke to his soulmate. Dylan’s on his way to the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge where he’ll be seeing him for the first time since finding out Mitch and his soulmate were the same person. 

The truth is, he misses his soulmate. He misses the random conversations they would have. He misses being able to confide in him. His soulmate has always been there for him when he needed him to be, but it was hard for Dylan to fully comprehend that it’s been Mitch responding the whole time.

He’s come to terms with this over the past few months. He caved in and told Connor when it was apparent that Connor wouldn’t stop asking why he wasn’t talking to his soulmate anymore. Connor was overjoyed at the news and laughed for a solid twenty minutes.

His advice was to talk to Mitch and get to know him, there’s a reason why they’re soulmates. Dylan scoffed at the idea in the beginning but he knows now that Connor was right. There’s an empty feeling in him now that he’s no longer in contact with his soulmate, this needs to change.

Dylan’s looking forward to seeing Mitch and talking things through. He just hopes it’s not too late.

He approaches Mitch after their first practice.

“Hey,” Dylan says.

Mitch doesn’t answer, he nods his head in acknowledgement instead.

“Can we talk?”

“Nah,” Mitch says. “Don’t wanna.”

Dylan sighs. That’s fair, he guesses. “Please, Mitch?”

“Leave me alone, Strome,” he says, walking away.

Dylan doesn’t follow. He’ll just have to corner him another time.

*

Team Ontario sucks. They can’t seem to generate any offense. Coach rearranges the lines before the third period and puts Dylan and Mitch together.

They both know better than to complain, it won’t do anything except make them look like whiners to the rest of the team and to Coach. 

As soon as they skate out on their first shift together, it’s clear that they work well on the same line.

Pretty soon Mitch has scored twice off of passes from Dylan. Coach takes a timeout and they gather by the bench.

“Hey,” Dylan says to Mitch. 

He’s about to tell him to stay close to the boards, that when he wins the faceoff, he’ll pass it right to Mitch, but he word vomits instead.

“I love you,” he blurts out.

Mitch looks at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“I-well,” Dylan says. He thinks about it for a quick second and yeah, he fell in love with his soulmate who happens to be Mitch. He loves Mitch. “I love you,” he says with more confidence this time.

Mitch looks like he’s struggling to pick a reaction. A whistle decides for him, indicating their timeout is over and they have to line up for a faceoff.

Mitch ends up getting a hat-trick off of Dylan’s pass to tie up the game. Dylan skates over and hugs him against the boards.

“A fucking hat-trick, Marns!” Dylan yells. “You’re amazing!”

Mitch grins up at him as their other teammates come over and start patting Mitch’s helmet.

“Only ‘cause of your passes,” Mitch says. “Wouldn’t have tied it if we weren’t on the same line.”

“Who would’ve thought we play beautiful hockey together?” Dylan asks, popping out his mouth guard, as they skate back towards the bench.

Mitch smiles at him. “Guess we’re soulmates for a reason,” he says. That’s the same thing Connor told him, the same thing he’s come to realize is true.

The game heads to overtime and they lose in a shootout. It’s a bummer, but at least Dylan got to play some great hockey with Mitch.

Dylan quickly showers and gets dressed. He waits at his stall for Mitch to finish up.

“Can we talk?” he asks once Mitch starts gathering his things and looks like he’s about to head out. 

Mitch looks up at him and hesitates. “Alright,” he says with a sigh.

Dylan leads him to a utility closet. 

“Did you mean what you said on the ice?” Mitch asks as soon as he closes the door behind him.

“Um, when I said I love you?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, yeah I meant it,” Dylan says.

Mitch takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “What changed?”

“I realized the person I was writing to is somewhere in you,” Dylan explains. “I tried to think about why I didn’t like you and the only reasons I could come up with were hockey related.”

“You’re an idiot,” Mitch mumbles.

Dylan reaches out and takes one of his hands in his.

“I’m sorry, Mitch.”

“’S okay,” Mitch says, smiling again. Dylan’s never received a patented Marner smile in his life and now he’s gotten three in one night, he doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to stop himself from jumping Mitch in the future if he keeps it up. “I don’t know if I love you,” Mitch admits.

Dylan leans closer to him. “That’s okay,” he says. He tilts Mitch’s chin up so that their eyes meet. “Really, it’s okay. I’m not expecting you to say it so soon. I just want you to give me another chance.”

Mitch rolls his eyes. “All you had to do was apologize. You’re so fucking stubborn, of course it would take you months to-”

Dylan cuts him off with his mouth. He grabs Mitch by the shoulders and pulls him closer. They kiss deeply before pulling away, panting in each other’s faces.

Mitch has nothing to say after that.

Dylan smirks. “That good, eh?”

Mitch groans and reels Dylan back down. “Fuck off,” he says into Dylan’s mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr.](http://liveinfurry.tumblr.com/)


End file.
